1. Technical Field
Embodiment of the present invention relate to a liquid crystal display (LCD), and more particularly, to an LCD with reduced response time of liquid crystals, increased effective aperture ratio of each pixel, and thus improved light transmission of each pixel.
2. Description of the Related Art
Liquid crystal displays (LCDs) are one of the most widely used flat panel displays (FPDs). An LCD includes two substrates, on which electrodes are formed, and a liquid crystal layer interposed between the two substrates. The LCD rearranges liquid molecules of the liquid crystal layer by applying voltage to the electrodes and thus controls the amount of light transmitted. In this way, the LCD displays a desired image.
LCDs can be made thin, consume relatively low power, and hardly generate electromagnetic waves harmful to the human body. However, since their lateral visibility is poor compared to front visibility, various methods of arranging liquid crystals and various driving methods are being developed to overcome this drawback. For a wide viewing angle, patterned vertical alignment (PVA) mode LCDs, which are vertical alignment (VA) mode LCDs having slits for domain partition, and in-plane switching (IPS) mode LCDs, which employ a transversal field method, are being suggested.
If each pixel electrode is partitioned into a plurality of domains as described above in order to achieve a wide viewing angle, an aperture ratio is reduced as the number of domains included in each pixel increases, which results in a reduction in luminance. On the other hand, as the number of domains included in each pixel is reduced, the aperture ratio increases. In this case, however, it is difficult to effectively control liquid crystals since the gap between electrodes increases. Thus, the directionality of the liquid crystals is unstable. Such unstable directionality of liquid crystals creates texture, reduces luminance, and increases response time.
In this regard, an optimized LCD structure, which can increase the aperture ratio and reduce the response time, is required.